These stills don't begin to convey how great everything looks and how well it all moves in the actual video... there's a spirit of fun and playfulnessthroughout that's very reminiscent of your work in the late '80s and early '90s. And then Katie's input takes it to a whole new level!

Katie is soo awesome!! I love how she draws girls. You guys do good together. Flash is Ok and simple to use but You should use MIrage, it makes the production go faster. But those stills look good though.......

Try to get Weird Al to put the video up on the iTunes store. He's got 3 of his older videos up for sale and dowload right now. I'm sure a lot of people here would gladly fork over $1.99 for this cartoon.

John,Do you think that you guys in the next five years will switch to an all most paperless studio and use Wacom tablets. I've seen these cool tablet screens, you draw right on the screen with pen. Do you think this cheats the whole cartoon industry? I've see cartoons done with Photoshop and I swear it looks like pencil but it's all computer. What are your over all thoughts on all of this? Thanks!Ken

I've found that often you can tell if a cartoonist is married or not by the amount of sexuality they put into their work. And I think women cartoonists are superior at making sexy cartoonists. Cause women know what men like, and what men want - it's psychological.

And this is just an innocent question, I'm already hitched and have been married for 5 years (and counting).

I like Katie's girls a lot, but i think that the cats singing in the fence are pretty boring... for Spumco's standars, at least! their facial expressions only shows ONE emotion ("happy") and according to you, John, that's not enough.Still, I think Katie is great, but in my humble opinion, she needs more work at non-girls subjects.

Everyone knows what men want. We're rather blatant about it. The real mystery is finding out what women want. Women don't even know. No offense.

Katie's girls are awesome. And it's nice to see Cigarette's the cat didn't get wasted by Dirty Dog. It still bugs the hell out of me that I never got to see how that ended. And I'm assuming that Cigs and Bugs Pussy are friends again.

>>but i think that the cats singing in the fence are pretty boring... for Spumco's standars, at least! their facial expressions only shows ONE emotion ("happy") and according to you, John, that's not enough.<

you're absolutely right.It's not the best frame. They are actually a lot more lively than that...we'll find another

>>The Mirage link I have posted will do the animation, and the colouring and the compositing. And is cheaper. Basically, if you want a program to get your animations from start to finish then you should consider it.<<

Hey John, Mirage has really been helping me alot with animation. It will drive you kind of crazy as first but now that I get it, it's great. Do you have StudioPro? (the animators tool bar) Let me know if you have any questions about it. I think you said your drawing directly into the computer with the cintiq (which is easier that what Im doing) If I cant help you, I know the guy who made it in Canada who could answer ANY question about it. Mirage is the best composting-inking program out there that I've seen......

Man, that first one tricks my eyes everytime! That little strand of hair hanging over the girl's eyeball seems like a pupil at first glance. But that's cool. Always gotta keep the eye guessing. If everything was apparent right away it would be boring.

it's from toonboom and it's supposed to be like flash, EXCEPT made for animators (made for TRADIGITAL artists). looks spiffy, but i hear it's got a stiff price.

we have mirage at our school. timing and such is very counterintuitive and i hate it.

right now, a lot of studios are using the flash/after effects combo. any thoughts on that? the only thing they need to integrate into flash for me is the ability to texutre things (like in illustrator) instead of only being able to flat color.

I can not wait for Tuesday July 18th. The Lost Episodes DVD is finally coming!........

"OH JOY OF JOYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I can't wait to see all the AIRED and UNAIRED episodes and all the cool EXTRAS!! I hope it won't be hard to find the hiddin extras. Anyway, I also wanted you to know that I got in the mail on Friday my copy of the R & S Life Sucks picture! It was worth every penny!

When the Weird Al video is ready will it be posted on YouTube, iTunes or both? I don't mind paying $1.99 to own it on my hard drive(but Apple Computers has to change its DRM policies, I'll address THAT in my weblog).

To katzenjammer studios, harmony seems ok but seems cheesy and expensive. Harmony is about $8,000 dollars and FLASH is better (which is not saying much). Theres NO tutorials, NO books to help you, your Fu#@ed! You can pay Toonboom monthly for about $130.00 for Tech Support and everybody speaks French!!! And yes I first checked out Harmony for a month and it was NO fun. With Mirage I get FREE tech support, a ton of tutorials, it's simple to use, and it's by FAR cheaper than Harmony. Toonboom Harmony is OK but for the money and hasels it NOT worth it.

Those are great drawings by Katie Rice. Most artists seem to be able to draw only one or two styles of girls. Katie is a member of a select group of cartoonists who has a limitless supply of female character designs at her disposal. Great job.

Thanks John for pressing Katie's artistic abilities. All creative people should be forced to try new creative endeavors.

John-why don't you do the Flash animation yourself, with Katie, etc. pitching in, instead of farming it out anywhere, to any outside studio? Isn't Flash an easier form of animation to do(once you know the traditionally done type)? Do it here! Or wherever you are!

JohnK,Don't mean to pick your brain; it's killing me to find out how the greatest cartoonist/ animators are adapting to the change of the tech world. I was watching the behind the scenes of the Star War Clones Cartoon, and Gendy T. had this set up tha blew me away. A Cyntiq animation disk. Do you have set up like that? When you do use the Cyntiq, do you have it set up at angle to where you can move around, use your shoulders while drawing, do you work flat on a desk? also....One of my family members(Lee M.) did some work for you about 8 years ago on the Old Navy Big Pocket Jeans commercials. He worked with the timming the out part. He worked out of my house. It was really neat watching this guy work on a Spumco cartoon in my own house, and great John K. even called and left a message on my answer machine. Small world. Ken